THE FATHERS OF THE SCIENCE Luigi Brugnatelli (1761 – 1818)

Luigi Brugnatelli (1761 – 1818)

 Italian chemist invented electroplating in 1805. Brugnatelli performed electrodeposition of gold using the Voltaic Pile, discovered by his college Allessandro Volta in 1800. Luigi Brugnatelli’s work was rebuffed by the dictator Napoleon Bonaparte, which caused Brugnatelli to suppress any further publication of his work.

However, Luigi Brugnatelli did write about electroplating in the Belgian Journal of Physics and Chemistry, “I have lately gilt in a complete manner two large silver medals, by bringing them into communication by means of a steel wire, with a negative pole of a voltaic pile, and keeping them one after the other immersed in ammoniuret of gold newly made and well saturated”.